Author Archives: Aaron Graham

Thank you!

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Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I know i said it at least a million times over the weekend, but I am so grateful for every single person that was a part of WordCamp St. Louis in any way.  I had a wonderful time and I hope all of you did as well.  We’re still working on a wrapping up a few things and hope to have links to all of the speakers presentations posted in the next few days.  Additionally, we’ll get the presentation up on WordCamp.tv as quick as we can so you can watch any of the presentations you weren’t able to attend.

If you’re in the St. Louis area, we hope to see you at one of our upcoming Meetups and don’t forget to follow the St. Louis WordPress community on Twitter or visit us at stlwp.org.

Once again, thank you all so much.  We’ll see you next year.

Speaker Interview: Nile Flores

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Our next person in our Speaker Interview series is Nile Flores, and since it would be a little odd to have her ask herself these questions I went ahead and asked for her thoughts.

Nile is going to be talking about Blogging and Content Creation

wcstl-speakerinterview-nileflores

AARON GRAHAM: What got you interested in WordPress?

NILE FLORES: I used b2 cafelog prior to WordPress. I got into b2 because I manually blogged before that. Manually blogging means that I wrote my post onto a page and had a 3rd party comment script like Haloscan. What sold me on b2 cafelog at the time was a combination of things- 1, a stable platform that could save comments and posts, and 2- Emoticons!

One of my favorite plugins at the time was b2 grins (eventually called wp grins) by Alex King. I had made smiley graphics (emoticons) in many different styles, and gave them for free. I even told people how to change the built in ones that came with b2 and how to add even more. 

Eventually, I got the news about WordPress and made the switch. It took rolling back b2 to a non-hacked version so I could smoothly transition. Since then, I’ve been happy with WordPress.

AARON GRAHAM: What is the most interesting WordPress-related project you’ve worked on?

NILE FLORES: I think the most interesting project I’ve worked on is when I worked on Melinda Emerson’s website. Melinda is Forbe’s #1 Small Business Expert. While I was merely the developer hired for the project, I got to speak directly with Melinda and learned a lot from our talks. 

AARON GRAHAM: Name 3 WordPress plugins that have always been on your MUST install list, and why.

NILE FLORES:
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast – I may work for Yoast, but I’ve been using WordPress SEO for years. It’s a great tool and always first on my recommendation list.

2. FooBox – I do write a lot of tutorials and sometimes the screenshots are really big. FooBox by FooPlugins has been a great addition

3. Plugin Organizer – I don’t have tons of time writing conditional statements to prevent specific scripts from loading on a single page. This plugin has allowed me to shut down unnecessary scripts from running, while allowing me to optimize web page speed.

AARON GRAHAM: What is something interesting about you that the WordPress community doesn’t know?

NILE FLORES: Hmmm… what doesn’t the community know that I haven’t already said? That’s kind of tough. So, I guess, what people don’t know is that while I am a 1st Dan black belt in Shoren Kempo (I’m working toward my 2nd Dan), I also study Kyusho, which is the study of vital points. Kyusho, if done properly has medical applications. It can also be used in offensive moves of martial arts (in fact, well done kata can also clue Kyusho practioners on vital points) and works well with joint locks.

AARON GRAHAM: In regards to new WordPress users, what one or two pieces of advice would you give them that could be very helpful?

NILE FLORES:
1- You don’t need to be perfect at writing. Just write. You can always go back to edit it later.

2 – Always have a back-up plan for your WordPress site!

Don’t forget that you can ask Nile questions here or at the event, so please don’t forget to buy your ticket.

If you’ve got any more questions for Nile, free to post them here in the comments.  Or if you’ve got your tickets, you can stop by and ask her at her session or the happiness bar.

Afterparty Update

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Holy cow!  WordCamp St. Louis is less than 4 days away!  It seems like just yesterday we were started planning.  I’m really excited for everything we have in store for this weekend and I hope you are too.

I just wanted to pass on a quick update about the Afterparty (no `capital_P_dangit` oddly enough).  Due to some “crossed wires” the schedule originally listed the Afterparty as starting at 6pm, when in fact it is actually going to start at 7pm.  Also, we wanted to let everyone know that we’re going to have light appetizers, ice tea and lemonade, and a cash bar.  If you’re looking for a full dinner, there are dozen’s of restaurants within walking distance of City Museum and we hope that the extra hour between the end of the day and the Afterparty will allow you enough time to sample some of Downtown St. Louis’ vibrant culinary scene.

If you do decide to stop for dinner before coming to the Afterparty, don’t worry about being late as we are going to be climbing through caves, sliding down monster slides, and running around skateless skate parks until 11pm.  But don’t forget that we’ve got a full day of hands-on activities planned for Community Day on Sunday, so save some of your energy for helping then.

See you all soon!

Community Day Keynote by Mika Epstein (aka Ipstenu, aka Half-Elf Support Rogue)

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We’re super-excited to let you know that everyone’s favorite Half-Elf Support Rogue will be joining us to talk about how you can fit into the WordPress community by being true to yourself. Mika will not only be joining us for the Sunday keynote, but she’ll also be helping out during the Community Day “Give Back to Core” session. This session is where you can learn how to submit plugins or themes to the repository or submit patches to WordPress Core.

For those of you who might not know Mika, we could list her achievements and interests but it would take me the better part of the day. It would probably just be easier if you checked out her website, .Org profile, or Twitter. We promise that you will be awed, inspired, and entertained.

If this sounds like a fun way to spend your Sunday, grab your ticket and be sure to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to stay up-to-date with all of our latest announcements.

The Schedule Has Arrived

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In just 5 short weeks, WordCamp St. Louis will be in full swing.  We’ve previously announced both our local speakers and our out of town speakers and today we’re happy to finally let you know the schedule of topics for Saturday.

Sunday, The community day, is going to be more hands-on and interactive so the schedule is more about which room will have the activities that you wish to participate in.

Additionally, we do have an exciting Community Day keynote speaker that we will be announcing in the next day or two.  For more info, just head over to the schedule page to see an overview of both days.

Last year’s WordCamp St. Louis sold in just 3 weeks so if any of the topics interest you, get your tickets today.

Announcing Our Remaining Speaker Lineup

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Last week we announced out local speaker lineup, yesterday we announced Cain & Obenland in the Morning would be our Saturday keynote speakers, and today we’re really excited to announce our remaining speakers.  If you’ve been paying attention to Twitter or our attendees page, some of them might not be that big of surprise. 🙂

What a great list of great people.

That about does it for our speakers, but we still have a bunch of stuff to let you know about between now and March 14th, so don’t forget to subscribe to updates or follow us on Twitter or Facebook to stay up-to-date with the latest WordCamp St. Louis news.

Automatt­icians Konstantin Obenland and Michael Cain to Keynote WordCamp St. Louis 2015

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We’re super excited to announce that Automatticians Konstantin Obenland & Michael Cain, hosts of the popular Cain & Obenland in the Morning podcast, will be keynoting WordCamp St. Louis this year.  Some of you may remember Obenland‘s appearance on the WordCamp St. Louis rating scale last year.

https://twitter.com/coderaaron/status/439900516701593601

This year he is returning with his co-host Michael Cain to help start off your day at WordCamp St. Louis.

We could wax on poetically about the most famous morning show in the WordPress world, but the easiest way to find out what you’re in for is to check out their site, and watch their episode from WordCamp Maine below.

Continue reading Automatt­icians Konstantin Obenland and Michael Cain to Keynote WordCamp St. Louis 2015 →

Sponsorship Update

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It’s been a few weeks since we reached out to the WordPress community and asked for their support in making sure WordCamp St. Louis 2015 is as amazing as possible.  In that short time we’ve connected with many different organizations that all want to help in a variety of ways and share our vision.

As we continue to gather support, I wanted to give a big thanks to a few of our early sponsors.

It’s not too late to become a sponsor, fill out the form and we’ll be in touch.

Don’t forget to check out our constantly updating list of astounding sponsors.

Announcing Our Local Speaker Lineup

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WordCamp St. Louis is first and foremost an event for the local WordPress community.

St. Louis has a thriving tech community with many talented and knowledgeable WordPress developers, designers, writers, and more.  The St. Louis WordPress Meetup has over 500 members  and meets twice a month to talk about everything from theme and plugin development to content strategy to security.

Many of the speakers who presented at past meetups have volunteered to speak at WordCamp St. Louis. These great presenters are being joined by other members of the larger St. Louis WordPress community to come together to form what we think is a very exciting schedule.

Without further ado, we proudly present our lineup of local speakers:

This is not the complete list of speakers, we will be sharing the rest of the group soon.  Additionally tickets will be going on sale very soon, so subscribe above or follow us on Twitter or Facebook so you don’t miss any upcoming announcements.

Call for Volunteers

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WordCamp is 100% organized by volunteers from the area, and there’s a lot to do.  Click the “continue reading” link to find out where you can help and submit an application to join a great team of people.

Continue reading Call for Volunteers →